In the scene, Charles Foster Kane first meets Susan Alexander, in 1915. She invites him into her apartment after she encounters him standing on the street, covered in mud from a passing carriage. She has just gone to the store to get some medicine for her toothache. It makes her laugh, so, when she sees Charles Foster Kane, she laughs at him. After all, he is a stuffy-looking man caked in mud, standing on the side of a New York street, not really doing anything but looking silly. This scene is significant because, although it does not introduce the audience to Susan, it is the first time we see her in her prime, when Kane fell in love with her.She is the cause of a scandal that leads to Kane loosing the New York gubernatorial election to Boss Jim Gettys. Though she is a pretty young girl, she is a stereotypical blonde airhead, not even knowing who Kane is when she first meets him. She does not even make the connection when he says: "I run a couple of newspapers". She is the person you would expect a political magnate to fall for: young, pretty, and has some sort of talent (in her case, she can sing, but I do not think she's very talented). She reminds me somewhat of John Edwards's mistress that he was will while his wife was dying. In Kane's case, his wife is doing fine at that point, but she is, after all, still his wife! She takes care of his child, cooks for him, appears with him at social functions, etc. Even though he isn't exactly "with" this new girl, he shouldn't be going to her house at night; she's a dumb young girl. Those kinds of people seem to be born to seduce politicians. And, when he closes her door, you know what Welles was implying with his innuendo. He couldn't put it in the film, but he wanted to show that, in real life, this would be the time that things would get hot and heavy between the two of them.
And now onto how Welles actually filmed this scene. First of all, as you can see in the video below, Welles set the scene up like the first scene in a pornographic film. I know that some get uncomfortable at the mention of such a film, but this scene is definitelys reminiscent, and I bet that several adult films have paid homage to this scene. Susan says: "This medicine doesn't do a bit of good." Kane chuckles and says: "What you need is to get your mind off of it." She squeals: "Hey!" Cue the cheesy funk music and the vaseline covered lens...Oh! But wait, Susan just opens the door and tells Welles that her landlady likes her to leave the door open when she has men over. That's it. Orson Welles set the first part of this scene up as one giant innuendo. It's aggravating how he did it. Maybe in 1942, people did not think like I do, but as a teenage boy in 2013, I assume that things will happen when a girl makes a comment, the guys laughs and closes the door, and then the girl squeals. I may be wrong, but that's what I expect. This scene let me down. I didn't really expect to see the act, but I would at least think that the act would be implied, giving validity to Gettys's blackmail. But nothing happens between Susan and Kane, so I have no idea why Gettys thinks that he can blackmail Kane. I know he succeeds, but I don't know why.
This first part starts out with a lot of low-key lighting, especially around Kane and the door. As Kane starts to cheer Susan up and make her laugh, the scene makes use of mostly high-key lighting, as shown in the still above. Then, as Kane gets sentimental about his mother, the scene has more heavy shadows, especially crossing cane, like stripes on his suit. Finally, it returns to high-key lighting as Susan talks about herself and her aspirations to be a singer. I feel that the lighting reflects Kane's emotions and attitude throughout the scene. FIrst, he is uncomfortable and feels that he should not be in Susan's apartment, so Welles makes use of low-key lighting. As he cheers Susan up and in turn, she makes him feel more comfortable, the lighting changes to high-key. When Kane starts to think of his mother and probably starts to feel depressed that he was absent from her life in her final years, the light changes again to reflect this sadness, a low-key, shadowy light that Kane wears like a badge of his sadness. But, Susan, being naïve as she is, does not realize Kane's sadness, so the mood quickly changes as she starts talk about herself, making Kane feel more comfortable again, and changing the lighting to high-key and bright.
Throughout the scene, Welles uses mostly dialogue as the audio, but he does incorporate music to show the blossoming love between Kane and Susan, starting when the look at each other after Susan re-opens her door. Kane's low serious voice directly contrasts with Susan's bubbly, giggly, high voice, creating quite an auditory show, something Welles probably learned to do when he was in radio plays. Kane's voice remains constant, always at the same tone, while Susan's voice moves up and down like a roller coaster, expressing little bits of emotion in each word. Her voice characterized her in so many ways: showing how she thinks, what she finds funny, how she poses questions, and even her general lack of caring regarding what she does and does not know (mostly what she does not know). In contrast, the audience never really gets to know Kane, his monotone voice never reveals anything and his actions seem somewhat "normal" in that they don't show anything about him. We know what he likes, but we never learn how he thinks and feels. He seems emotionally scarred from his upbringing away from his parents and not quite human and real.
The scene starts with a wide-angle shot of Welles at the door, which zooms as Susan opens it and begins to talk to Kane. After this, the camera shows how Kane cheers Susan up through a mirror at an eye-level mid-shot. Then the camera cuts back and forth between Kane, in a mid-shot showing his torso and head, wiggling his ears; and Susan, in a mid-shot in the mirror, laughing and commenting on how funny he looks. Then, it pans to a wall and jump-cut transitions to a shadow-puppet of a rooster, done by Kane, in a wide shot. Then the camera focuses on Kane and Susan in a wide angel shot before panning and zooming to their faces as they begin to talk about why Kane was dressed up, walking in the middle of New York at night. The camera cuts back and forth in close-up shots of Kane and Susan's faces. Then, it returns to a mid-shot or wide-shot of the two of them talking about Susan's music. The scene finally ends with more close-up shots of Susan and Kane's faces. The whole scene employs deep focus, especially in the wide shots, where it is truly visible. You can see every detail of Susan's room when the camera looks at her through the mirror. Also, when the door is open, you can see both Kane in the foreground and Susan in the background in perfect focus, which is, while not completely obvious until you really look at the picture, a bit annoying and unnerving because it does not mirror how the eye naturally sees different objects, with objects being in focus at a close range and moving out of focus as they move away from the viewer. However, it it an interesting trick and a cool way of looking at a scene, being able to notice all of the little details, like the snow globe in Susan's room that is seen earlier, in the first scene, breaking on the floor when Kane drops it as he dies.
The rest of the mise-en-scène is fairly basic. The décor of the scene is just Susan's room, which contained a mirror that the camera used to focus on Susan as well as a bed, a desk or table, and a closet along with a solid-looking wooden door and all of Susan's knick-knacks and clothes strewn about the room. The costume is Susan in her modest blouse and waist-high pants, with her hair tied in a loose bun behind her head and Charles Foster Kane in a pinstriped suit, covered with splashes of dried mud and some dirt, with a freshly waxed John Waters-like moustache and his hair, slicked back as was the style. He is wearing a light-colored tie, but its color is indistinguishable in the black and white film. The location of the scene is entirely within Susan's room, though some may say that it starts on the street, when Susan is walking home from the store and Kane is standing by the street just standing there, seemingly waiting. The lighting is a mix of high-key and low-key, depending on Kane's mood in each part of the scene. It starts with low-key lighting, changes to high-key, changes back to low-key, and finally remains as high-key lighting for the last minute of the scene. The film as all in deep focus, especially in the wide shots, as previously stated, and the cinematographer uses a combination of wide shots to establish the character's location and positions in the scene, zooming into mid-shots to focus on the Susan and Kane's interactions, and then zooming further into close-ups to show how they each react when speaking.
This scene contributes to the film as a whole because it is a prime example of Orson Welles' famous use of deep focus in the film as well as a great example of Kane's carefully spoken dialogue, which reveals very little about his character. It is an introduction to Susan Alexander, as Kane met her and fell in love with her back in 1915. The whole scene also acts as another image of how Kane shows love, being juxtaposed with scenes of his decaying marriage and cold exchanges with his wife. Later, the scene and Kane's interaction with Susan are used by his opponent in the New York gubernatorial election, Boss Jim Gettys, as a way to blackmail Kane into resigning from the election. Kane ends up losing the election because of this scandal, and he never occupies a political position in his life, despite his vast wealth and power.
The scene:
Citizen Kane Post-Screening Reflection Day #2:
In the scene, Charles Foster Kane is standing in his office when Jedediah Leland walks in, drunk. He declares that he is drunk and then begins to scold Kane about how he treats other. Finally, Leland asks for the drama column position in the Chicago Tribune, which Kane allows his, after some reluctancy. This scene is significant because, it shows the growing rift between the two best friends. Leland says that Kane always talks about the working man but doesn't really care about him, though, Leland himself, a fairly well-off man, is complaining, himself, taking attention away from "the working man".
The men are huge in both the newspaper world and in each others' lives, so they are shown from a low camera angle to signify their gigantism. This also shows how inflated their self-images have become over the years of richness and power. Welles maintains deep focus throughout, so that the audience can see Leland from the moment he enters the frame, in the middle of the background, until he enters the foreground. The lighting is mostly a dull, dark high-key lighting, but it changes to low-key as Leland goes off on his rant.The scene is a wide angle shot until it zooms into a mid shot of the two men talking. The sound is fairly basic, with all mid-tone dialogue at a slightly louder than normal volume with minimal sound effects of Kane walking through the papers in his office. The mise-en-scène is simple for this scene because it is only two men talking in an office.The décor of the scene is just Kane's office, strewn with posters and papers, with blank walls and a skylight shining inward. The costume is just Leland and Kane, both in suits, with Leland wearing a bowler had and Kane having his hair slicked back as was the style and his mustache trimmed. Leland's coat is grey, while Kane's is a dark pin-striped color, probably black. Leland is wearing a white tie and Kane is wearing a striped light and dark colored tie, with the dark color probably being black and the light one probably red, looking at its tone.
The location of the scene is entirely within Kane's office, though you can see part of the outside through the skylight in some shots. The lighting is a mix of high-key and low-key, depending on how Leland is talking to Kane in each part of the scene. It starts with high-key lighting and then changes to low-key when Leland begins to talk about "the people"; it stays low-key throughout the scene, as Leland's voice continues to crack because of his intoxicated state. The scene is all in deep focus, especially in the large wide shots, as previously stated, and the cinematographer uses a combination of wide shots to establish the character's location and positions in the scene, zooming into a mid-shot to focus on Leland and Kane's interactions as Leland expresses his feelings about Kane.
This scene contributes to the film as a whole because it is a prime example of Orson Welles' famous use of deep focus in the film when Leland walks into the scene in full focus, even though he is far from the camera, as well as a great example of comic relief that Orson Welles has interspersed with tension to create a very dramatic piece of art. It is not the first scene where the audience learns of Leland's doubts over Kane's morals and thoughts, but it is the one where Leland actually confronts Kane (in a drunken stupor), telling him how he doesn't really care about people; all Kane wants is control. The whole scene also acts as another image of how Kane interacts with his friends and family; it follows the scene with Susan Alexander and Kane's wife meeting when Gettys blackmails him into losing. Later, Leland's position is followed up, when he writes a negative review of Susan's opera singing. When Leand passes out because of alcohol consumption, Kane purposefully finishes the review, intent to prove that he is an honest man. He also frames Leland in a way because he knew hopw Susan would react to the negative review in a newspaper he owns, and he knew that he would have to fire Leland. That is his silent revenge for this scene, when Leland really speaks his mind. However, in the end, Leland is the one who outlives Kane, so he gets the last laugh, as he is telling an interviewer to get him a good cigar (The doctor is intent on keeping him alive. He objects to this. He knows his time is soon.) And Kane did get to rule over his own little island, Xanadu, an isolated castle, but he had no one to rule, not even monkeys, in his empty castle by the sea.
In the scene, Charles Foster Kane first meets Susan Alexander, in 1915. She invites him into her apartment after she encounters him standing on the street, covered in mud from a passing carriage. She has just gone to the store to get some medicine for her toothache. It makes her laugh, so, when she sees Charles Foster Kane, she laughs at him. After all, he is a stuffy-looking man caked in mud, standing on the side of a New York street, not really doing anything but looking silly. This scene is significant because, although it does not introduce the audience to Susan, it is the first time we see her in her prime, when Kane fell in love with her.She is the cause of a scandal that leads to Kane loosing the New York gubernatorial election to Boss Jim Gettys. Though she is a pretty young girl, she is a stereotypical blonde airhead, not even knowing who Kane is when she first meets him. She does not even make the connection when he says: "I run a couple of newspapers". She is the person you would expect a political magnate to fall for: young, pretty, and has some sort of talent (in her case, she can sing, but I do not think she's very talented). She reminds me somewhat of John Edwards's mistress that he was will while his wife was dying. In Kane's case, his wife is doing fine at that point, but she is, after all, still his wife! She takes care of his child, cooks for him, appears with him at social functions, etc. Even though he isn't exactly "with" this new girl, he shouldn't be going to her house at night; she's a dumb young girl. Those kinds of people seem to be born to seduce politicians. And, when he closes her door, you know what Welles was implying with his innuendo. He couldn't put it in the film, but he wanted to show that, in real life, this would be the time that things would get hot and heavy between the two of them.
And now onto how Welles actually filmed this scene. First of all, as you can see in the video below, Welles set the scene up like the first scene in a pornographic film. I know that some get uncomfortable at the mention of such a film, but this scene is definitelys reminiscent, and I bet that several adult films have paid homage to this scene. Susan says: "This medicine doesn't do a bit of good." Kane chuckles and says: "What you need is to get your mind off of it." She squeals: "Hey!" Cue the cheesy funk music and the vaseline covered lens...Oh! But wait, Susan just opens the door and tells Welles that her landlady likes her to leave the door open when she has men over. That's it. Orson Welles set the first part of this scene up as one giant innuendo. It's aggravating how he did it. Maybe in 1942, people did not think like I do, but as a teenage boy in 2013, I assume that things will happen when a girl makes a comment, the guys laughs and closes the door, and then the girl squeals. I may be wrong, but that's what I expect. This scene let me down. I didn't really expect to see the act, but I would at least think that the act would be implied, giving validity to Gettys's blackmail. But nothing happens between Susan and Kane, so I have no idea why Gettys thinks that he can blackmail Kane. I know he succeeds, but I don't know why.
This first part starts out with a lot of low-key lighting, especially around Kane and the door. As Kane starts to cheer Susan up and make her laugh, the scene makes use of mostly high-key lighting, as shown in the still above. Then, as Kane gets sentimental about his mother, the scene has more heavy shadows, especially crossing cane, like stripes on his suit. Finally, it returns to high-key lighting as Susan talks about herself and her aspirations to be a singer. I feel that the lighting reflects Kane's emotions and attitude throughout the scene. FIrst, he is uncomfortable and feels that he should not be in Susan's apartment, so Welles makes use of low-key lighting. As he cheers Susan up and in turn, she makes him feel more comfortable, the lighting changes to high-key. When Kane starts to think of his mother and probably starts to feel depressed that he was absent from her life in her final years, the light changes again to reflect this sadness, a low-key, shadowy light that Kane wears like a badge of his sadness. But, Susan, being naïve as she is, does not realize Kane's sadness, so the mood quickly changes as she starts talk about herself, making Kane feel more comfortable again, and changing the lighting to high-key and bright.
Throughout the scene, Welles uses mostly dialogue as the audio, but he does incorporate music to show the blossoming love between Kane and Susan, starting when the look at each other after Susan re-opens her door. Kane's low serious voice directly contrasts with Susan's bubbly, giggly, high voice, creating quite an auditory show, something Welles probably learned to do when he was in radio plays. Kane's voice remains constant, always at the same tone, while Susan's voice moves up and down like a roller coaster, expressing little bits of emotion in each word. Her voice characterized her in so many ways: showing how she thinks, what she finds funny, how she poses questions, and even her general lack of caring regarding what she does and does not know (mostly what she does not know). In contrast, the audience never really gets to know Kane, his monotone voice never reveals anything and his actions seem somewhat "normal" in that they don't show anything about him. We know what he likes, but we never learn how he thinks and feels. He seems emotionally scarred from his upbringing away from his parents and not quite human and real.
The scene starts with a wide-angle shot of Welles at the door, which zooms as Susan opens it and begins to talk to Kane. After this, the camera shows how Kane cheers Susan up through a mirror at an eye-level mid-shot. Then the camera cuts back and forth between Kane, in a mid-shot showing his torso and head, wiggling his ears; and Susan, in a mid-shot in the mirror, laughing and commenting on how funny he looks. Then, it pans to a wall and jump-cut transitions to a shadow-puppet of a rooster, done by Kane, in a wide shot. Then the camera focuses on Kane and Susan in a wide angel shot before panning and zooming to their faces as they begin to talk about why Kane was dressed up, walking in the middle of New York at night. The camera cuts back and forth in close-up shots of Kane and Susan's faces. Then, it returns to a mid-shot or wide-shot of the two of them talking about Susan's music. The scene finally ends with more close-up shots of Susan and Kane's faces. The whole scene employs deep focus, especially in the wide shots, where it is truly visible. You can see every detail of Susan's room when the camera looks at her through the mirror. Also, when the door is open, you can see both Kane in the foreground and Susan in the background in perfect focus, which is, while not completely obvious until you really look at the picture, a bit annoying and unnerving because it does not mirror how the eye naturally sees different objects, with objects being in focus at a close range and moving out of focus as they move away from the viewer. However, it it an interesting trick and a cool way of looking at a scene, being able to notice all of the little details, like the snow globe in Susan's room that is seen earlier, in the first scene, breaking on the floor when Kane drops it as he dies.
The rest of the mise-en-scène is fairly basic. The décor of the scene is just Susan's room, which contained a mirror that the camera used to focus on Susan as well as a bed, a desk or table, and a closet along with a solid-looking wooden door and all of Susan's knick-knacks and clothes strewn about the room. The costume is Susan in her modest blouse and waist-high pants, with her hair tied in a loose bun behind her head and Charles Foster Kane in a pinstriped suit, covered with splashes of dried mud and some dirt, with a freshly waxed John Waters-like moustache and his hair, slicked back as was the style. He is wearing a light-colored tie, but its color is indistinguishable in the black and white film. The location of the scene is entirely within Susan's room, though some may say that it starts on the street, when Susan is walking home from the store and Kane is standing by the street just standing there, seemingly waiting. The lighting is a mix of high-key and low-key, depending on Kane's mood in each part of the scene. It starts with low-key lighting, changes to high-key, changes back to low-key, and finally remains as high-key lighting for the last minute of the scene. The film as all in deep focus, especially in the wide shots, as previously stated, and the cinematographer uses a combination of wide shots to establish the character's location and positions in the scene, zooming into mid-shots to focus on the Susan and Kane's interactions, and then zooming further into close-ups to show how they each react when speaking.
This scene contributes to the film as a whole because it is a prime example of Orson Welles' famous use of deep focus in the film as well as a great example of Kane's carefully spoken dialogue, which reveals very little about his character. It is an introduction to Susan Alexander, as Kane met her and fell in love with her back in 1915. The whole scene also acts as another image of how Kane shows love, being juxtaposed with scenes of his decaying marriage and cold exchanges with his wife. Later, the scene and Kane's interaction with Susan are used by his opponent in the New York gubernatorial election, Boss Jim Gettys, as a way to blackmail Kane into resigning from the election. Kane ends up losing the election because of this scandal, and he never occupies a political position in his life, despite his vast wealth and power.
The scene:
In the scene, Charles Foster Kane is standing in his office when Jedediah Leland walks in, drunk. He declares that he is drunk and then begins to scold Kane about how he treats other. Finally, Leland asks for the drama column position in the Chicago Tribune, which Kane allows his, after some reluctancy. This scene is significant because, it shows the growing rift between the two best friends. Leland says that Kane always talks about the working man but doesn't really care about him, though, Leland himself, a fairly well-off man, is complaining, himself, taking attention away from "the working man".
The men are huge in both the newspaper world and in each others' lives, so they are shown from a low camera angle to signify their gigantism. This also shows how inflated their self-images have become over the years of richness and power. Welles maintains deep focus throughout, so that the audience can see Leland from the moment he enters the frame, in the middle of the background, until he enters the foreground. The lighting is mostly a dull, dark high-key lighting, but it changes to low-key as Leland goes off on his rant.The scene is a wide angle shot until it zooms into a mid shot of the two men talking. The sound is fairly basic, with all mid-tone dialogue at a slightly louder than normal volume with minimal sound effects of Kane walking through the papers in his office. The mise-en-scène is simple for this scene because it is only two men talking in an office.The décor of the scene is just Kane's office, strewn with posters and papers, with blank walls and a skylight shining inward. The costume is just Leland and Kane, both in suits, with Leland wearing a bowler had and Kane having his hair slicked back as was the style and his mustache trimmed. Leland's coat is grey, while Kane's is a dark pin-striped color, probably black. Leland is wearing a white tie and Kane is wearing a striped light and dark colored tie, with the dark color probably being black and the light one probably red, looking at its tone.
The location of the scene is entirely within Kane's office, though you can see part of the outside through the skylight in some shots. The lighting is a mix of high-key and low-key, depending on how Leland is talking to Kane in each part of the scene. It starts with high-key lighting and then changes to low-key when Leland begins to talk about "the people"; it stays low-key throughout the scene, as Leland's voice continues to crack because of his intoxicated state. The scene is all in deep focus, especially in the large wide shots, as previously stated, and the cinematographer uses a combination of wide shots to establish the character's location and positions in the scene, zooming into a mid-shot to focus on Leland and Kane's interactions as Leland expresses his feelings about Kane.
This scene contributes to the film as a whole because it is a prime example of Orson Welles' famous use of deep focus in the film when Leland walks into the scene in full focus, even though he is far from the camera, as well as a great example of comic relief that Orson Welles has interspersed with tension to create a very dramatic piece of art. It is not the first scene where the audience learns of Leland's doubts over Kane's morals and thoughts, but it is the one where Leland actually confronts Kane (in a drunken stupor), telling him how he doesn't really care about people; all Kane wants is control. The whole scene also acts as another image of how Kane interacts with his friends and family; it follows the scene with Susan Alexander and Kane's wife meeting when Gettys blackmails him into losing. Later, Leland's position is followed up, when he writes a negative review of Susan's opera singing. When Leand passes out because of alcohol consumption, Kane purposefully finishes the review, intent to prove that he is an honest man. He also frames Leland in a way because he knew hopw Susan would react to the negative review in a newspaper he owns, and he knew that he would have to fire Leland. That is his silent revenge for this scene, when Leland really speaks his mind. However, in the end, Leland is the one who outlives Kane, so he gets the last laugh, as he is telling an interviewer to get him a good cigar (The doctor is intent on keeping him alive. He objects to this. He knows his time is soon.) And Kane did get to rule over his own little island, Xanadu, an isolated castle, but he had no one to rule, not even monkeys, in his empty castle by the sea.
The scene: